Doing the West Ridge route of Quandary sheds a whole different light on this mountain. I didn't see a single person until I got to the summit. The south side of the ridge had no snow at all. The north side was different - see the pictures. I was glad to have my gaitors. I had microspikes, but didn't use them....perhaps I should have. There was 2-8 inches of dry powder. It seemed especially deep in the most inconvenient places, covering the rock and (I felt) increasing the difficulty. This route is spicy, and the snow increased that factor. There were a couple of places where I would not have felt comfortable trying to downclimb on the return trip, so I opted to take the East Ridge trail down to 13,100 then dropped south back down to my truck parked at Blue Lakes TH.